My War Memories, 1914-1918
Petrikov-Lodz line, in touch with the Landwehr Corps, on Wielun.
Positions had been prepared round Czestochova and Wielun.
The nth A.C., south-west of Sieradz.
Between the rivers Prosna and Warta, the 5th Cavalry Division, which had come from the Western Front, the 8th Cavalry Division and the 7th Austrian Cavalry Division were concentrating under General von Frommel who now gave up his command of the 35th Reserve Division and Count von Bredow's Landwehr Division.
The Landsturm formations went back to the Kalisz-Wreschen-Thorn line.
The Russians followed at full strength. They also attacked us very heavily in East Prussia and near Mlawa. The position became very serious. We longed for an opportunity of resuming the offensive, but with the Austrian Army so near such an operation would have been very hazardous, and, in any case, the offensive could only have been a frontal attack. We should only have failed.
A further serious decision had now to be taken. I was more and more convinced that our only course was to send a large part of the army round by rail to Hohensalza and Thorn, and from there bring them down along the Vistula in the Lodz-Lowicz direction, so that they could fall on the flank of the Russians and bring their advance to a standstill. What forces could be spared for this operation was a further question.
Our first business was to delay the Russians as long as possible and keep them away from the German railways. The destruction of railways and roads had been prepared for in a very wholesale manner. Experience had taught us that a modern army cannot operate more than one hundred and twenty kilometres from its railheads. If this were true, and we were able to destroy the railways as thoroughly as I hoped, we could count on bringing the Russian masses to a temporary standstill, even without fighting, before they reached our frontier. In spite of all our preparations it was not an easy matter to carry out the
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